The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

by Beth Brower

Nothing feels worse than disaster that trips over the heart.

As often happens when confronted with an opaque situation, words rushed to my tongue, their weight building before spilling over into nonsense.

My perception of self includes a belief in general capability. In that moment, I was questioning said belief.

“Yes, well, I think we can both agree that damaged items still hold value.” He stilled.

“A personal journal should be just that, personal. With a thoughtful, bespoke binding.”

“My life isn’t always my preferred method, and yet here I am, day in and day out.”

Fool, Emma, you be. You know you live the sort of life that would not bear up well under scrutiny. Of any kind.

And we three stood there trading only silence.

“Innocent sleep,” he quoted. “Sleep that soothes away all our worries. Sleep that puts each day to rest. Sleep that relieves the weary labourer and heals hurt minds. Sleep, the main course in life’s feast, and the most nourishing.”

The image of Pandora’s box being opened by my own hand flashed across my mind. A sobering and somewhat disappointing realisation when one understands they are their own worst enemy.

Trifling as many of these little rules may at first sight appear, they are by no means unimportant. Trifles in the aggregate become great social forces.

I am experiencing the dissatisfaction that comes after weeks of barrelling at such a pace one can’t keep one’s feet on the ground. But when a perfectly blank day presents itself, one is too out of sorts to make heads or tails of it. March has been such a gallop. The quiet should be restful but feels maddening. Even the tea tastes stale. My entire life digresses. Pierce did not return home today.

It felt like the starlings flying about my chest had settled with a thud in my stomach.

What does one with a limited library read when melancholy? One attempts to read a dozen chapters from Leviticus for perspective (I wouldn’t say Leviticus was particularly helpful), a passage of Whitman for hope (hope and impatience, more like), and a soliloquy or two by The Bard (What a piece of work is a man, indeed!) before circling back to Isaiah, if necessary. It was necessary.

This afternoon the bookstore felt cosy, darkened by grey clouds, but sunshine was trying to break through from the west, and when it did, all the book spines looked like gemstones.

And so it was I passed not one, but two hours. Admiring gilt edges, beautiful fonts, chasing down words, and smelling the inked paper as if it were expensive perfume. A good afternoon. A much-needed daydream.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. There do I find a never-failing store Of personal themes, and such as I love best.

The aim being Consideration brought about by Contemplation.

“The world needs heroic deeds.” “It does. Cousin Archibald declares it all gone to the dogs, but I’ve still hope. ‘I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.’” Tilting his head, Hawkes said, “Extra marks for the Whitman.

It was as if I’d thrown a pebble into a deep, deep pond. Internal stillness encountering mild surprise. This ripple caused a change only in his eyes.

Not that I don’t wish Hawkes well. I do. I do! I wish Hawkes constellations, and poetry, and wonder, and much more sleep than he presently finds.

“Last Season she was Arabella’s foil. No one who saw her thought her anything but the opposite of perfection.”

“It feels as if you are wandering the empty house that was your life, the rooms so familiar you can’t deny you once inhabited them, but everything is sparse: bare windows, naked floors, and all the paintings are gone from their frames. It is the loneliest feeling I know, and I am sorry.”

Maybe I’m coming down with something. Like a cold, or an allergy to people in general.

You are almost irresistible, what with your brain and all.”

“If you want quality, you must work for it. You wake and you strive and you make decisions to sacrifice. An easy life will never bring the kind of satisfaction the soul craves. I despise people who lounge all day as if there weren’t more important ideas than comfort, complacency, and appetite. Stretch yourself! Be industrious! Do something!”

He was not afraid, but there was fear, and I am not certain how to explain the difference.

“Some bridges one can only cross when.”